Keynote speakers

Carien van Reekum is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Reading, UK. Van Reekum focuses on psychological and brain mechanisms of adaptive responding to emotion and consequences for well-being, and how these processes change over the lifespan, particularly with advancing age. Her work uses a wide range of measures of brain imaging (MRI, EEG) and peripheral psychophysiology (e.g. skin conductance, heart rate, facial EMG), in addition to behavioural measures and self-reports.

Andrea Scarantino is Professor of Philosophy at Georgia State University. Scarantino examines theoretical definitions of emotions, how theories of emotion have changed over time, and emotional communication. He proposes a Motivational Theory of Emotions, which holds that emotions are essentially prioritized impulses to behave, and a Theory of Affective Pragmatics, which holds that emotional expressions are speech act analogs and played a key role in language evolution.

Dacher Keltner is Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley and faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center. Keltner’s research focuses the biological and evolutionary origins of compassion, awe, love, and beauty, and power, social class, and inequality. He is the author of Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life, The Compassionate Instinct, and The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence, as well as two textbooks. Keltner has published over 200 scientific articles, written for many media outlets, and consulted for the Center for Constitutional Rights (to help end solitary confinement), Google, the Sierra Club, and for Pixar’s Inside Out.